Video: Fake banks

At first glance, it looks much like any other Internet bank. Pearl Atlantic Credit & Trust says it offers loans, project financing and online banking, with deposits insured by the FDIC. There are even pictures of a CEO, Victor Bartruff, and other officers.

When NBC News checked further, we found that Bartruff was indeed a bank president, but at Pinnacle Bank of Oregon. His picture had been stolen by Pearl Atlantic.

"I have nothing to do with that bank," says Bartruff. "I never heard of it until you had contacted me and asked me if I was involved with it."

So we decided to call the bank's number in the Netherlands, using an assumed name.

Operator: "Pearl Atlantic, good afternoon. How may I direct calls please?"

"Artists against 419," a grassroots consumer group which targets these scams, says the fake bank appears tied to an e-mail scam.

"We probably find five or ten more a day on average," says a woman who volunteers at the group and asked that we not use her name. "We keep finding new ones."

The Federal Trade Commission says a likely motive is identity theft, and that these scams are tough to stop.

"For every enforcement action that we take, I'm sure that there are new fraudulent Web sites set up," says the FTC's Eileen Harrington.

Authorities say there is no way to know how many consumers were fooled by Pearl Atlantic. Pinnacle Bank says its systems were not compromised. The day of our last call, Pearl Atlantic's Web site became unavailable, at least for now.